#127: Risk the $600K in His Home or Play it Safe?

You can't have her high society desires overcome what your income is, right? Because you guys are being held back by the 600k that you have in this house. We're being house poor.
Yes. Well, and I always said I would never be house poor, but we weren't, right? We were doing fine.
Now I am house poor because the house is the expensive part. My name is Seth Shaner.
I'm 48 years old. I live in Orange County, California, and I sell restaurant businesses.
And tune into this episode of Next Level Pros. So Seth, man, it's been a while since we've chatted.
It's been a long time. Yeah.
So you and I, we were neighbors back in the day. Yep.
When I bought my first house at the age of 24. I was older than you, but I think that was the first house I bought as well.
Okay. Cool.
Cool. You've been up to a lot of things to change.
Yeah. Cool.
So tell us about what you got going on right now. You're in the restaurant industry.
You're selling restaurants. It gives a little more detail.
Yeah. Yeah.
After, you know, it's funny because the year that we were 2008 my business i had a business that went under so i was you know re like what am i going to do and it was pretty rough actually for the next eight years um i i had i owed a lot of money it was about a million bucks and so i ended up um negotiating all that and paying it off for the next eight years um instead of bankruptcy. I know you talked about that in your story.
Right. But I told my wife at the time, I said, where do you want to go? Because we need to go somewhere else, a bigger market.
And she said Orange County. Is she originally from there? No, she's from Utah.
What took you to Orange County? You just sounded nice? Apparently on our on our first date we talked about this and i don't remember the conversation um you know kind of a guy thing i guess but we talked about where we both want to live our number one place was orange county just weather and lifestyle and the weather is nice yeah sure we're gonna have to talk a little bit more about orange county because i know uh you know you you're kind of in a dichotomy right now right like you're you're trying to make money yep and the one of the most expensive place that's that's kind of part of the issue right um that said i sometimes i think um being in proximity to people you know and you know can be helpful too yeah right so there are a lot of people around me that are very successful and that can be helpful as well and uh the brokerage i'm with is in newport beach so right so anyway fast forward so we moved to orange county but part of that was then i got a job with um ge capital franchise finance yeah so i started selling debt um so i was selling loans to restaurant franchisees all over the country. It turns out I was really good at that and took me back to, you know, I did a two-year Mormon mission back in the day and I was really good at that.
And so the sales thing for me has been a theme, but I kind of kept ignoring it. And so when I was at GE Capital, things went really well.
The problem is at the end of the day, GE ended up selling all of GE Capital. And so we all got sold and laid off.
And I did a couple things to start a business. I went to another bank for a while and ended up getting hired by, I was going to do this same thing I'm doing now, selling businesses in 2019.
At the same week, I had an offer to go run a big restaurant company from one of my customers from GE Capital. And this is 127 Denny's.
And they had 33, bought 94, made a big organization. This is 4,000 employees, 200 million revenue.
And I took over as president six weeks before the pandemic hit. So this is my 000 employees 200 million revenue and i took over as president six weeks

before the pandemic hit so this is my first time running restaurants but you know the reason i took

that job over the brokerage job is i thought this is the only time i can always go back to do a

brokerage i'm not going to go in as a president of a company this big um yeah it's not going to

happen very often yeah so i felt like that was a unique opportunity to be able to to get even deeper learn more about my industry so then i have the finance side now i have operations so let me let me just like wrap this all together so you owned a business back in la was that the first business you ever owned yeah yep okay and that sailed that was that sailed. That was, yeah, that was, it was construction related.
It was, yeah. And then since then you've operated as like a high level, either executive consultant, I mean, basically a high level employee for the last north of a decade.
I did start one other business in 2017 that I sold in 2020. Okay.
And that one was, so the first one was a failure. That one did well.
It succeeded. I sold it.
You know, it wasn't what you saw for. It was like 800 grand.
It wasn't a big deal. Did you net 800 on that? No, maybe half that.
Okay. But, you know, I had bought, there was a messy, I had a partner who really tried to take the company, I bought

him out using debt, and then he tried to take the company down after that.

Broke every agreement.

You know, it is tough, and that really kind of hurt.

So, I mean, you've had essentially a couple messy experiences.

I mean, obviously, you sold the second business, which is good.

Sold it, but really didn't.

But even that was a little messy. It was actually, yeah, pretty was in because i had a partner who was a bad person yeah and um i recognized that because you know at the time he's telling me all the right things but my gut told me this is not someone you want to do business with and so you know i i read your bio you wrote a whole lot more than I ever knew about you.

We were next door neighbors and attended the same church and everything else.

And I didn't know half the stuff that you wrote in here, which is interesting. So, like, I mean, you've got, you know, obviously there's a lot of reasons why you should play small, right?

Like the way you were raised, your parents were, you know, not into the entrepreneurial scene whatsoever they know they well they tried and when i was 14 they were bankrupt right i mean they they feel i don't even know if i said that and you wouldn't what i mean is like you've seen you've seen a lot of examples of failure right regarding entrepreneurship and so you really have every reason to be a little scared of it right well and not only that when i was growing up my dad made a book he read this another book or something and i remember being a teenager we were living um my parents were bankrupt when i was 14 we moved to this small town in illinois where they grew up and it was a house was 28 000 with a half acre and i mean it was run down we anyway and my dad at that time could not get a job and he made this book the many you know called the many failures of steve w shaner yeah i read that title i was like what he wrote a book i was just like how he sucks he just put it all in here and and and i look i love my parents because they've always been super supportive like they're always like you can do anything yeah. I just have never had the example of it.
Do you know what I mean? And so I think it was hard for me to put together. It's like if you've never been to Mars and now you're trying to navigate, where do I go? So what do you think is the biggest thing that's held you back? Has it been that? Has it been your – because, I mean, you've been through a lot just reading up, right?

Like family was pretty unsuccessful financially growing up.

Yeah, financially.

Right, financially.

You know, you had to provide a lot for yourself.

Your first business failed.

Your second business, you were able to sell.

You've gone through a divorce and a few things.

What do you think the main thing that's kept you from like going and achieving like the big dream? Yeah, I think I've thought about this a lot. Yeah, because I've been, I've been digging this into this with my just myself, right? Trying to understand this for the last kind of year or two.
Yeah. And I think part of that was i had this concept of you know being

conservative and some of that for me came from i felt like my my religion um i think it also came from you know i was married to someone who's an amazing person i'll never say a negative word but not

does your person

not my person

and not

doesn't like that

she wants

stability

you know nine to five just no risk salary zero risk and it's hard i think it's hard to be sorry sorry zero perceived risk zero perceived risk see risk right right because obviously there's a lot of risk with what you're doing getting laid off with some of these big corporate jobs and everything like that. Yeah.
I've been laid off of a bunch of them. I understand.
I was fired. I was laid off.
I mean, so it was something with that company that caused a change. Yeah.
Because I think that's important for anybody watching this thing. Like if you have a job right now and you're considering becoming an entrepreneur, like realize that risk doesn't only land on the

side of entrepreneurship.

Correct.

There's a lot of risk associated with being an employee. The perceived risk that we're taught, right, is if you work for somebody, you have a job, that's stability.
You can't get a house loan if you're an entrepreneur because, you know, and make a hundred grand because of your deductions and stuff. But if you're W-2, the society is set up to support or favor jobs as something that's stable when in reality we know a job can be gone just as fast as anything.
Yeah, it's really set up for us to not take risks. Yes.
Let's just call it spade to spade. Your wife held you back from taking risks.
Right. I held me back, but I chose to listen to the relationship.
You allowed that? Yeah. And so now it was very freeing when I said, you know what, I need to move a different direction.
It was a really hard decision. I mean, because we also were married a long time time and we have three kids and i love them all so it's not about that it's about you know at some point you got to be who you need to be and that was a hard decision for me do you feel like anything's holding you back right now me yes what's holding you back what are your biggest fears that are keeping you from being the the sessioner that can be right well so one of them you know so then when i left my job um early 23 okay so i i thought my thing was going to be to go acquire some of these smaller restaurant chains so five to ten store i had four deals last year that i was trying to to close okay and it wasn't a lack of capital or financing it was each one had a situation that i couldn't really control um one of them the cash flow kept going down the price kept changing uh two of them they just at the last minute said oh i don't want to sell yeah you know change their mind so So I thought that was my past.
So part of it has been who, what kind of entrepreneur should I be, right? And so I started out doing that. And I spent a lot of time, you know, legal costs, travel, you know what I mean? You've done it.
I mean, trying to do deals. Yeah.
And they didn't work out. Right.
And so by the beginning of this year, when the last, the fourth one didn't work out, I was like, okay. This brokerage had approached me and I'm like, you know what? I'm good at selling.
I know I can do that. But what I didn't want to do is have to go kill all the time.
You know, like you kill what you kill. But then I'm like, well, I can always do something on the second, you know.

So let's lay some groundwork here.

So let's talk about your personal finances, right?

Like how are you making money right now?

Because I know you're trying to close these deals, right,

with brokering restaurants, right?

Yeah, so now I'm –

That sounds great.

Yeah, now, yep.

How are you paying bills?

Well, and it's tough because now i'm doing consulting to pay the bills what does that mean what does consult yeah it means like kind of definitions out there there are and really helping um restaurant owners to make more money and so i'm going in you're signing contracts to work with these guys for six months yeah just be there like sounding board by very specific things very specific so i can look at a set of financials and i can say look i can save you a million bucks however much it is for sure and then and i know exactly where to do it how much money you make in doing that right now not not as much as i how much you make in money um right now i i'm i'm turning over clients so i just have an i have a new client that just signed on friday for four grand four grand a month a month okay i have another one that they were calling me this morning i think they they'll be in like another six grand a month okay so if i understand your situation you're divorced from your wife but you're now living back in the same home almost. Yeah.
I have a casita. She's in the garage type deal.
Yeah. I have a little mother-in-law apartment type deal.
Yep. Okay.
So you're with your kids. Is your wife or ex-wife working? She teaches piano.
I'm just trying to write my head around like, okay, how are you living in Orange County making four grand a month with wife, kids? Well, it's not four. Yeah, it's been about $15,000.
I'm assuming you're helping contribute to the bills there? Oh, yeah. So it's been about $15,000 a month.
And then I'm just in this transition where I transitioned out of a couple clients, and now I'm transitioning back in to some others. It's about $15,000.
You've been making $15,000 a month. Yeah.
Which is really not. It's not a lot of money in Orange County, especially when you're talking about federal income tax, state income tax, property taxes.
I mean, just everything that's affiliated with living in the state of California is absolutely terrible. Yeah, it's not enough.
The challenge is I've been trying, I don't, it's like I don't want to take on too much consulting because then it's going to take away from the long term. Long term is the brokerage.
You know, like I signed a listing last week that'll pay me a hundred grand when that sells. I have another one I think in the next, it'll sign the next few days.
It's about 120. So that's the problem.
So then the sales cycle for those is six to eight months right so that's my challenge is like i'm so you're making what would you say an average deal would be worth you 100 150 grand let's call it 100 yeah some will be smaller um i'll get some little things here and there but i don't you know my focus is these um decent sizes let me ask let me ask uh on the consulting side how many clients do you feel like you could bring in on that um if you were just saying i'm gonna get as many i can bring in more it's it's it's this industry does not like consultants because there are a lot of people out there trying to do what i do and they don't know what they're doing and so they've been burned before so the challenge is they want more of your time than you have you don't like that industry and i said well i don't like to consult to the industry i either need to own it because i know what to do and i'll do it and i'll do it fast like i can change i can i can i get someone a five times return on what they're paying me in six weeks and so i'm even doing now i'm starting to do a guarantee look i will guarantee this if it doesn't it doesn't work, then I will pay you back. You're saying you can go into a restaurant and turn things around pretty quickly.
Yeah, not a, this is usually five, at least five restaurants, but a chain. So if they're doing like five, 10, 20 million revenue, the one this morning is 50 million revenue.
They're losing money. 50 million revenue, they're losing losing money so i could i told him i said look i can get you flipped by 2 million bucks cash flow in the next three to six months what is it about that what you know specifically that brings that much value to a restaurant like that quick so i'm look i'm a technician i don't know anything about food i don't i'm not a chef i hate making food stresses me out but i know how to fix businesses my first job was consulting fortune 500 um that was my first job out of college as top five firm and so i mean why don't you go back in like work as an executive for one of these fortune 500 companies go make three four five hundred grand a year plus stock benefits i mean that's what i was I.
So my last gig, I was making about 350. I should have made more, but pandemic killed bonuses and I had a profit sharing plan.
So that was the goal. I thought this was going to turn out to be 600,000.
So why don't you go back there? Well, because I don't think that that's me. I'm better'm better at selling.
Like this is, this is a good fit for me.

And I'm trying to, I'm trying to break this down.

I just need to understand like the level of risk that you can go and tolerate.

Okay. So right now you're making 150 grand a year.

Um, now I'm making, I mean, 15 a month would be like 15 to, so you're making, so 180.

Oh, 180.

Yeah.

Okay.

And how much do you need to live?

I mean, that pays the bills with a little extra without taxes.

Okay.

Which I mean, I should have a lot of time.

So are you going into debt actively right now?

Technically, I would be going into debt right now.

So you're going into debt.

Okay.

So you need $200,000 to live.

Yeah.

I need, I mean, in California.

I mean. I mean, we're talking.
Yeah, I need, I mean, in Cal, I mean.

I mean, we're talking.

Yeah, 200, 250.

Okay, so why are you still living in California?

Well, because there's not, I'm not the only decision maker.

Right, so that's part of it. Right, but the decision, the other decision maker isn't making any money, right?

Not much.

Okay.

So, you know, I think the key thing to understand here, like a lot of times we put ourselves in self-imposed prisons. No, I get it.
I'm sure you understand this. And the other part of it is I have a lot of equity in the house.
Right. I mean, I own my home.
Right. And we bought at the right time.
Yeah. And I'm sure there's benefits to being in Southern California, kind of like what we talked about, right? Being around certain people or whatnot.
But couldn't that take place through travel? Yeah, that's not the reason. The main reason to stay is keeping the kids.
Like my daughter's a sophomore. I have a son in junior high.
So it's just keeping their friends and their situation. But who's telling you that? Yeah, I think I think one of the one of the things that I'm I'm seeing reading this, Chris is kind of starting to hit on it is like you got basically I feel like you're looking at your past as the building blocks of where you're going.
In other words, you're this guy who's been divorced. You left your religion.
You your parents have this like and these are all the things that you identify with right i think i did and i'm trying to i'm trying to let those go i don't really i don't think about them as much now i'm thinking about you know signing my next however many deals but it feels like you've kind of numbed yourself so that you don't feel those things and so now you're looking at your future you're not looking at it with passion you're looking at it with like so let's let's play what if team i'm passionate let's play what and you have to understand there's so part of the deal here is there's whatever they say like 10 000 baby boomers retiring every day yeah this business there's no one doing what i do in way to sell these. We're not telling you not to do this business.
No, I'm just saying I'm excited about that. So I don't want to get that wrong.
Yeah, I think a great business. I think a lot of the opportunity, 100, 150 grand, like we can help you build a business there.
But I think we need to foundationally solve some issues here. Like first, let's play the what if game.

What if there were no strings attached

to any past decisions?

Families not involved,

whatever else.

Seth Shainer had an opportunity

to start completely fresh.

Knowing what you need to go and do, would you be in Orange County right now? I wouldn't need to be. I don't know where I would go.
Okay. I don't really have anywhere to go.
Is Orange County the best option for doing what you're trying to do on the budget that you have? I don't. I mean, I see where you're going.
I don't think it needs to be. I can't do this job anymore.
I can do it in Mexico. Okay.
So now we're going somewhere. I almost did.
The what if game, and I know you've been working on re-identifying yourself, right? Like you've left your religion, you left your family that used to are those are big steps if you're trying to completely redefine yourself and like and if that's what you want i applaud you right like because that's hard for most people most people it's really difficult to say like like you've been dedicated to this belief system this family tract whatever else and go and do something so like if that's what you want like congratulations um you know that wouldn't fit for me but like that that's great but i think along those same lines is like what other limiting beliefs do you have that are holding you back from making the best decisions that are going to impact you and your family yeah i mean i think part of it is there's two of us so you know we have to agree and some of that's legal stuff right right like wherever what why do you have to agree you have to agree on what because we have children so you have to agree on where we're the children so that we can see that where the children and part of that is what we want i want to see my children but like i'm not going to be you know a lot of guys take off right or whatever or just aren't around much i mean that's not the life i want i don't want that for my kids and so part of this is um the other another part of this is i look and it doesn't mean that i can't make other decisions but a big part of this my biggest why is i want to show my kids that yeah things can be tough and we can get out of it right i didn't think we would it would get this far i didn't think i had that many failed deals so last year i had you know cash and it was going to be fine and then we i got to the point where it was like the the last failed deal was like kind of put the nail in the coffin where things got it tighter. Have you talked to your ex about relocating? No, she's thought about it, but she would want to go somewhere.
I don't know. It won't work for me.
So it's just one of those. Why wouldn't we have an active conversation? Why wouldn't somewhere where she wants to go? It wouldn't work for you.
Cause where she wants to go, I don't want to be. Where does she work for me? Where? Idaho.
She wants to go to Idaho. Why wouldn't Idaho work for you? because I don't want to be where does she work for me where idaho she wants to go to idaho why wouldn't idaho work for you uh because i don't want to live in idaho okay the lifestyle that works for me doesn't is not there okay but it doesn't mean i mean there are other places like um i'm just i mean what i mean i'm thinking of all the places in the world that you could live besides crazy California.
What is it about? Orange County is not so crazy. No, no, no.
I love Orange County, but guess what? They're great people. Great people, but you still are at the beck and call of Governor Newsom, right? You still have the crazy taxes, the crazy everything else.
I don't care how great the people are there. I wish Orange County could secede from California because it really is completely different, but I understand what you're saying.
What I'm saying is you have ownership over this. You could go to Vegas.
You could go to Idaho. You could probably go to Utah.
There's somewhere that your ex-wife would agree to that would still give you the benefit that you want of being around your kids and spend way less money, which would allow you the dollars to be able to go invest in what is absolutely needed to be able to grow this business.

Yeah, I think part of it is I've seen this as a very short term issue.

You know, once I get a commission or two, I mean, we're good and things are, you know, things are rolling. Because I anticipate having a lot of these coming out quickly.
So that's the other part. I mean, another option is.
But what if they don't? Well, what's the other? I mean, the other option is sell the house. We have a bunch of cash and rent for a little bit.
And then, you know, it buys me a lot of time, actually. Which that would work, too.
Yeah. Yeah, and I'm just trying to poke holes in your belief system.
No, I'm glad. No, it's good.
It's good for me because a lot of this is my second half because I've been trying to be respectful to her and how she sees her life, how she sees raising the children, all these friendships and things that we've made over the many years being there um it's not that it shouldn't be hard for me to make the money we need it's the challenges doing these two different things at the same time can be tough now the deal from february that the last one that's that he pulled out three weeks before called me friday and said i'm ready now i'm serious and this is a deal that i think i can add a you know million bucks of cash flow within six months levi would you say what were i was asking why idaho like why does she want idaho she has a sister there that's why that's the only reason how much how much money could you give by selling your house i mean it's got about 600 maybe a little more of equity yeah and technically i sell businesses now right but i have a real to sell that i have a real estate license so i could save some money on the commission as well yeah i mean dude i mean 600 000 versus like how much cash you have in the bank right now? Not enough, right? What's your- 40 or 50.

What's your house worth?

2 million.

So, and do you go and rent something very similar in the same area?

Well, it wouldn't even have to be that big, right?

I mean, we live in one of the nicest,

I mean, it's one of the nicest communities,

nice home, which at the time made a ton of sense.

I'm super glad I bought it when I did

because it made a lot of money. We actually already took a little bit out to pay some stuff off before it was great like we're in a great situation you feel like you're lying to yourself living there i haven't been at all um now i mean do you do you feel like i don't feel like i don't feel like i am no not at all no i feel like that's that's what's strange is i feel like i completely fit in.
Right. The issue is it's a short-term issue.
Yeah. And so the question is how short-term.
Well, it hasn't worked out. Right.
Right. I've already been through a lot of that.
Right. And so, yeah, it could be longer for whatever.
So the fear is that if it works out, great. If't work out what do i do well it'll look it'll it'll work out it's a matter of time okay so let's it's a matter of is it now let's continue down the what if game you go you sell your property you make 600 grand what would you do with that well first of all would your ex-wife be entitled to half of that yeah she would i mean the goal was for us to keep stability for the kids so i mean i'd say i don't know it again this is if it was my decision okay that let's play the what if game if it's my decision then they would move into a house that was cheaper they could rent a place that's four grand a month or something okay for they would have enough bedrooms and you know then i could actually rent a place for fairly cheap and um you know okay so what would you do with what would you do with the money what would you do with proceeds well i have yeah i've never thought about it that's a good idea i would take the first 20 sorry no go ahead i would take the first 20,000 and invest in what I'm doing.
Because right off the bat, I've got a bunch of little things that I could be doing to drum up a lot more of these deals. Because the more deals I have, the more listings I have, the more likely it works out.
And the more likely it works out faster. Because if I have five deals all at the same time, if two of them don't go through and three of them go through, great.
That's 300 grand. So one of the biggest challenges, right, is you're trying to create a specific experience for your kids.
I'm trying to create consistency for my kids. I think divorce is already chaotic enough.
As I talk to people whose parents were divorced i asked a lot of questions about what what hurt you in the end like what were the things that you know if they didn't happen would have been better a lot of those are around how they treated each other the the two you know dad how they talk about each other um and another and just of, you know, still having the same friends. And, you know, if this one part of your life is different and it's difficult, having everything else consistent can be really helpful for children.
But that doesn't mean I can't, look, I can, there are other houses in the same neighborhood, you know, a block away that are half the price. Because I think one of the biggest challenges you have is like how you define what's best for them and the sacrifice to provide that.
In other words, maybe there's a short-term sacrifice that creates way more stability, but it creates instability before it it creates more stability and i think sometimes there's there's like limiting beliefs in that aspect of it's like you have a priority to create stability but your your worst case scenario we talk a lot about like your worst case scenario a lot of times you're so close to your worst case scenario that and that's where people stay comfortable is because they don't want to get to their worst case scenario which would be like falling only a little bit further falling a little bit further but your best case scenario is like 10x 20x what you're currently experiencing no and this okay so what's funny about this okay i don't i'm not afraid of the worst case scenario because i've been through a lot worse right that 2008 situation that was terrible i mean that was like you're talking you're talking finances or are you talking kids i'm saying i'm talking at the well i'm saying like worst case scenario at any moment in your life right and everything changing saying okay i need to move i need to do that like when your whole life changes right so that's as bad as it gets right the bad as it gets in this world is you move somewhere else right yeah and you're still alive and you can still provide food for your family yeah it's really not as bad as everyone thinks right right and so for me i actually think so given this conversation i wonder if it'd be an interesting would be interesting to sit down with the family and say, look, if all of a sudden we lived in a different house, but now we could go do more things as a family. Right.
I mean, because. That's interesting to me.
Because you guys are being held back by the 600K that you have in this house. We're being house poor.
Yes. Well, and I always said I would never be house poor, but we weren't.
We were doing fine. And the past was there.
And COVID did hurt my earning potential for a few years because I all of a sudden didn't get extra profit sharing and all this stuff. But that said, now I am house poor because the house is the expensive part.
Yeah. You know? Well, so, I mean, so going to the kids, right, I think is a great idea.
Sit down with kids, like really find out what they want. First of all, like we think our kids want more or like completely different than what they actually want, right? I put my kids through.
We've moved 14 times during my career, right? And before we live in the house that we're in right now, we lived in my in-law's garage in an apartment. I had four kids in that apartment in this house.
And we had moved from our house in California, which was a really nice home, 3,200 square feet in San Diego, right? Really nice into a garage and then into a really nice home.

And we were in that garage for a year and a half.

Guess what?

Their life didn't change, right?

Like they were happy, they were good.

They made new friends and everything else where like everything from the outside looking

in from a parent's standpoint would have been like, oh, I'm putting my kids through this

crazy thing or whatever.

And so I just think we buy too much into that narrative it's just not real okay and i i agree with you i actually don't think that especially if i could keep them in a similar neighborhood going to the same schools like they'd be great you know i don't think they'd have a problem with it at all i think the challenge is um my ex-wife who you know she's um i've been trying to help keep her um her head in the game let me put it that way right over the last couple years because to her she's like oh my gosh now i don't have income anymore you know how am i gonna live yada yada yada now i'm not the kind of person that i'm not gonna i'm not gonna leave her and make her go you know whatever i i prefer that she's she and i didn't grow up with parents around and so our our commitment when we got married was that i would work and she was gonna stop working so she didn't develop her career and she doesn't have a way to make good money and we want our kids to have parents around at least one well here's i think the unfortunate truth is as a non-income earner, you have to be the decision driver in this situation, right? Like if you're paying the bills, right? I mean, as the income earner. As the income earner, right? If you're paying the bills as the income earner, you've got to be the more of a decision maker, right? Because at the end of the day, you're responsible, right? Like she's not the one floating the bills.
And I want to be because I'm the one who can do it. And that's fine.
Like congratulations that you're pulling that off as a divorce man because I think that's great and a big, big honor. But like, you know, you can't have her high society desires overcome what your income is, right? And so you've got to put yourself up for the best opportunity to be able to go and build this business.
So let's continue out of this game. You said you'd take 20 grand.
So if you came upon this money, you sold the house, you had 20 grand, you would go and you would invest in opportunities to be able to market? I would a few yeah i would do a few things because i you know the goal would be to start to test what what's working right because right now what i'm doing is working i'm doing very little and i need to do a lot i i could do a ton more i could i first i would bring on interns to help me input data and make would you stop consulting absolutely so so yeah first of all let's just unburden that right now. We're going to use a little Kamala Harris crap here.
Unburden the past. Must we? Unburden what has been or whatever she says, right? I wouldn't know what she said.
She has this funny phrase that everyone makes fun of her. So let's just say you unburden yourself from actually having to go do the thing which would you say that you hate doing that right now well i hate it the only reason i hate it is because they don't listen and it's one thing if you have clients who want to change but they don't and i'm and i'm selling myself for pennies when i could be investing in you have you heard us heard us talk about the energy matrix no okay so around here.
I got it just right on the TV right behind you. Okay, so there's four quadrants.
This is quadrant one, two, three, and four. So quadrant one is low energy, low value.
Energy is defined by things that you love doing. When you do it, you get energy back.
You're like, that's awesome, right? Value is defined by what it would cost for you to do it or somebody else to do it. So low value would be something that like is cheap to hire somebody else to do, right? And so what I hear you saying is that consulting is quadrant three.
It's low energy. People aren't listening to you.
They're not doing what you, so you're not, but it's high value. It's paying the bills, right? Would you agree with that? At the moment, yes.
Under current circumstance. Borderline.
I mean, if anything, it's somewhere between quadrant three and quadrant one. Okay.
So it's actually not. Low energy, low value.
Yeah, because it's not really paying but it what it could or should right right but i mean it's higher value to your current situation i mean let's put it this way i i i was charging one client 10 000 a month and in six weeks we had a half million dollars a year in savings i mean i should be charging a lot more so my point is that's why i say it's low value okay so it's it's even it's really i was saying it's not quadrant four right it's not it's no it's i need to close one quadrant one okay let me ask you let me ask a question on it so right now your focus is restaurants is there are there other industries that you can apply your same skill set of course i've worked in 30 industries between private equity and consulting and all the stuff but this is your main niche you know this the best well this is where i've got the most yeah i've got a lot of um credibility but the other thing is like anything that's like chain right whatever that's like a perfect model restaurants are one they're the most complicated actually most others like you think about gyms or all these like jiffy lubes or whatever they're way simpler so restaurants are about as complicated as they get okay So let's keep going down this what if game because the what if game I think is your roadmap to where you're going to get some freedom here, right? And so you're able to put away consulting, right? And you're able to go and spend some money. So first of all, when building a business, when building any type of business, you have to first identify the quarter one activities that you're doing on a daily basis.
Right. And from the sound of it, you have an assistant that you're hiring for one hour a week right now.
Yeah. Yeah.
She look, because if I have a $30 table bill, I will pay it even if I have a million bucks in the bank. Yeah.
So I hire make sure I pay my weaknesses. I know my weaknesses.
And that's a perfect example of low energy, low value, right? Like you'd rather pay her. It's cheap.
Low energy, high value. Well, it's the highest value I have in my life.
She is the most important person. Well, you're saying it's high value to me.
But'm saying the the actual thing that she does is is a low value because it doesn't cost you a lot of money to get it oh okay right low cost yeah low value right that value is cost okay that cost energy is what what it so that you would hate doing you hate paying that bill yeah right and you can easily uh hire it out so now what we have to do is identify the other things in your life that are the same way, right? That you would do in building this business that are low energy, low value. And I've identified a bunch of those things.
So one of those things is I need to build a database of people to go after because I have to go find these people who own the restaurant chains, right? There's something like 750,000 restaurants in the US. And a lot of those are franchised, but the independents are the ones that need my help the most.
And that's where the biggest niche is that's not being filled. So for me, it's I got to put them in a database.
So I got to go find information, blah, blah, blah. It's a lot of just administrative kind of stuff.
I can get an intern for that. You can intern you can get a filipino right like dude there's filipinos that do that kind of crap for five to six bucks an hour and are phenomenal at it they can do incredible research like access to databases everything else like that's literally all they do that might be even better because then they don't graduate right they don't graduate it's essentially essentially like having an intern forever.
Right, right, right. No, I mean that, and that could be, and so that's one.
It's like putting stuff in the database. The second one could even be cold calls.
Just, Hey, are you considering selling your restaurants in the next two years? And then set up a meeting for me, kind of put me up as like the expert because I am. And so what would you say when you're in like your zone, your expertise, what's your high energy, high value? Like what activities do you need to be doing every single day to make this thing just? Yeah.
The things that are the most valuable for me to be doing are having conversations with people like who are ready, who want to sell their business. Right.
So like talking, talking to them about what's closing deals, seeing the numbers analyzing yeah analyzing them i don't need necessarily put them all together but i need to see them in the end to say okay what do we have here yep and then what is this worth and then having conversations with the seller to say you know those conversations are the most valuable for me so negotiation yeah negotiation um and well and the initial sale to get the listing because when they meet me and i can talk about every single piece of their business and they realize i understand it that um it way it it's um it builds a lot of trust so if i'm hearing you're right they trust fast if i'm hearing you're right if you had a magic wand and you could have somebody build a database do cold calls generate leads generate leads generate leads and and then you just sat on and then you would also want somebody to compile the the information right yeah yeah and then help So like a data analytics? And administer, yeah. Well, maybe you're saying the financials.
Yeah. I could, yes.
I could have someone put the financials together as well. Yes.
So you'd want somebody to do some initial due diligence. This is what I, when I was at GE Capital, I got a guy like this and he was like- How much did he cost? Well, I wasn't paying for him because I was an employee luckily, but how much do you think he'd cost? He cost at the time, he was probably 120 grand or something.
Okay. But I don't need that.
I mean, at the time, you know, he was an up and comer at GE. He was under me and I would just, if I was out having meetings, I call him, Hey, I'm sending you financials.
Have them ready. By the time I get back, I get back.
We have a meeting the next day. We have an approved deal by the next.
I was super efficient. So I dropped.
Okay, so we're going to keep playing this what if game. If you had unlimited leads and like deals put in front of you, how many could you close a month? I mean, a lot.
I don't need a lot. I'm not even sure.
Two a week? One a week? Because the only thing I would have to be doing, right, I could hire out almost everything except for some of those initial calls and a check-in. I mean, I don't know, 10, 20, 30? It wouldn't really matter.
Okay. You could close 10 a month.
Yeah. Okay.
Okay. This is great.
This is great. And each deal is going to be worth at least 100 grand.
On average, I think they'll be about 100 grand. Okay.
The stuff I've been going after, it's all been about that. So let's think about this.
You're talking about a million dollars in deals, right? Yeah. 10 a month, a million dollars in deals.
Okay. What would it cost to generate a million dollars in deals? So we talk about like a data compilation guide due diligence.
That's the 10 grand a month. Okay.
Well, and some of this, the other side of that is online, right? So there's a lot of people that I don't have any information for that I need to go find by what he's saying. I'm just saying like social media, whatever.
Okay. LinkedIn might be a be a great okay but we're talking about like your most expensive employees we're talking about somebody that can do data compilation due diligence all right 10 12 grand a month okay somebody that does database compilation we're talking about a filipino for 2k a month right we're talking someone that does cold, you could literally have five Filipinos doing cold calls, literally, that now we got 4K a month, okay? And you can go and spend a bunch of money on marketing, right? Like you can literally spend 50K a month, right? Yeah, and I was going to say, the thing I might run out out i may run out of leads like to call so that's where i gotta figure out where to find the information well so again i think you're saying there's 700 how many how many restaurants there's i mean the numbers that i see like across i mean is about 750 000 restaurants in the u.s okay so 750k now a lot of those are franchised, like, you know, McDonald's has 20,000, you know, Subway has 20,000 restaurants, that kind of thing.
So a lot of those are those. Now I do have, I can go after those too.
I have, you know, two, I can, you know, I have a couple very large national brands that are kind of under, that are under me as well, that I could be having someone call. what i want to point out here turn around there's a there's a lot what i want to point out here wait let me say two if i run out of restaurants there's other businesses i can go to gyms i can do you could do home service businesses for us because we're we want to buy those deals yeah that's so i love to show that so okay let, okay, we're talking about 10 deals a month is a million.
Let's say you don't do a million. Let's say you do one deal, right? Right.
And you hired everything out that we just talked about. And that's been my goal, one deal.
Okay. But I don't want that to be my goal.
So 50, 64, 66,000. So on the worst case scenario, you close one deal a month and you net 34K.
You'd have 66K in expenses. You'd have 34 in net, which is about three times as much as what you're making right now.
Right? So like if you had a full time team, right. And let's, let's just say initially you didn't spend the $50,000 in marketing, but you had a full time team of people that are compiled database, cold callers, and somebody that's going to do all your due diligence and everything else.
We're talking about $16,000 a month. How many months could you go off of what you have in equity to go and build this without making a deal? So let's say 15K for the family to live and then whatever, 30,000 total maybe with living and this.
Yeah. So we go, what is that, 20 months? 20 months, dude.
Yep. You can go for 20 months before you close one deal.
Right. Would you ever in your life go 20 months full time and not close a deal? I'm getting close to that right now.
No, that's not true. You've been closing deals.
closing deals no that's true i've been closing deals you're yes you're right you've been closing deals you've been closing consulting deals right like have you ever in your life seriously concentrated on something for 20 months and made zero dollars and that's what i would say no absolutely not i mean even at ge they gave me the worst database they i mean my friend who was already there told me not to take the job. He's like, this is a crap database.
They put 11 of us out there. They hired 11 people, gave us the worst stuff.
They said, we don't think there's any deals here. After the first year, I did like two or three deals.
No one else had done any. They let all those people go.
They gave me the whole database. And then I started blowing it up.
I think on the other side, you're always talking about the seller side, right? You're trying to reach out to people who can sell. Yeah, and I can do buy side too.
I think the buy side would be even more lucrative as far as deal flow. It can be.
The challenge is, matching the buyers is harder. But if you have a listing, if you go list your house, you're going to get paid for it right but if it's going to sell it all so that's the place where i'm going to make the most money but to your point even on the way here the listing i got last week that isn't even up yet i was already calling a i think the perfect buyer on the way here telling him this is your deal well what i'm saying though is is people who are looking to buy restaurants right like they're getting there's restaurants on the market they just don't know if they should buy them or not right and so like private equity i mean we've had private equity where they bring in an expert right why aren't you getting brought in on those deals as the expert where you have a piece of the transaction um that's consulting yeah well the primary funds in our industry they're specific to restaurants and they know what they're doing they don't need me so you just sell it they need me but to give them deals so and i know them and i have a deal i'm working on with one of them right now but i'm just saying which i mean dude there's there's the opportunities are unlimited right but let's let's just focus on what you have here, right? Yeah, I was hoping this is where we went today because this has been, it's almost like I'm afraid of this.
Dude, and here's the thing. But I didn't have a way to fund it.
Well, we just figured that out. We just figured that out.
I've already got the money, apparently. Yes, dude.
You're living in a self-imposed prison right now. I know.
Right? And you're not taking the action. You're doing things that you hate, like consulting.
You're barely paying bills. And you're slowly kicking your side project down the street, hoping that a few of these deals close.
Rather than you're like, dude, you know, right? Like, you've got to stop lying to yourself you know this will work oh i know if you go 100 love it like i it's almost like this sick hobby that i just sit there and i just like okay who's the next person because i get excited and i don't think everyone in this world does this but i'm sure you do and you probably do too but like what will the next thing the next rock i what's under it? Like, I just get excited about it. I don't know why.
You're a deal maker. You're an entrepreneur.
Like, and here's the thing. You can go and build this business.
I know you have a goal to make a million bucks next year. Let's freaking make a million bucks a month, dude.
Like, and this is totally doable. You literally just have to say, you got to look at your worst case scenario.
Okay, I'm going to go, I'm going to sell my house. I'm going to have 600 grand.
I have 20 months, okay? That pays for family and that pays for full, like a full team, dude. Like we're talking all the Filipino back that you one mba that that knows what he's doing to be able to do all the work that is necessary literally to fund that crap to fund family everything you need one deal every three months yep one deal every three months but let's take the real upside right like you know that know that with a team like that, what is the potential that you can go in close? Yeah, I'm already on pace for about two a month because I've got two that should sign, that almost one is signed, one next one should sign.
I have two more I'm teaming up for next month. That's without doing hardly anything.
And now, and that's with- It's a 10 SB. And that's you doing it on the side, right side right i know because because your consulting thing you get rid of the consulting thing you go a hundred miles deep on this one thing and you have no downside potential because you know in the back of your mind i got 20 months to make zero dollars right yeah and i could just go all all in and now we go and scale we put dollars behind behind leads.
And then literally a million bucks or 10 deals a month, very doable. And then what does it look like to go and scale this to 100 million a year? But what you're also forgetting is you already have deals lined up.
Yeah, I already have deals lined up. And those will take, what, six months? Yeah, so that's the thing.
It's been the sales cycle that's a little bit long. Which you can afford under this scenario.
That's part of the value, right, is being able to wait. A lot of people can't or won't do that.
But the other part of this, too, is in getting the deals, when I start to think about referral sources, so investment advisors who know their client has this business they need to sell, they're not going to get paid, the advisor, until they sell that business and invest the money, right? Like estate attorneys, other brokers, a lot of them don't want to do restaurants. So I could have someone calling all these people too who are all referral sources.
Levi, what are you thinking, man what's going through you what's cooking over your brain over there i was just cooking up uh like the outreach piece of like getting leads but also thinking about your marketing strategy because like you're clearly the expert in the industry how easy it will be to position yourself or you could save a lot of money by positioning yourself as the expert. Personal brand, right? Giving out information and selling implementation like Alex Ramosi does.
And people are now coming to you like, hey, I'm, you know, you make an Instagram video or YouTube video about, hey, how do you understand if my business is ready to sell? Or like, how do I go find a good deal? And now people are coming to you like, holy crap. now I know this is everything I need to do to get my restaurant ready to sell.
Now you've got a- And I've seen this in your write-up here, right? Like you have this part of your model. You're like, hey, I'm going to go and do short videos that educate the restaurant industry, do like my own little podcast.
I can totally do it. Let's go back.
The reason you're not doing this

is because you have these chains built up, right? So we just remove those chains, get back to this

area of freedom, of imagination, right? Of like, what if, what are the possibilities,

right? So my challenge would be to you, one, go and get that money, right? Like literally

free that up as fast as you possibly can. Sell the house.
It's your ball and chain. Two would be go and build a five-year model.
We have a five-year model. It's part of our course.
We'll give you the videos for that, like how to build the five-year model, which is mapping out what you want this thing to look like from an organizational structure, backing it in with what you would pay to salespeople and everything else. Because dude, I really think you have the ability to build, like Levi's talking about, that personal brand, generate leads, be the authority of this space, and have a huge sales team you're doing a hundred million dollars in commissions a year.
Like I really think you have something here that's absolutely phenomenal and nobody is effectively doing well in private equity. Yeah.
And people are, and there are a lot of people trying to sell franchise. Everyone's so focused on French restaurant franchise, right? Franchise, franchise, franchise.
Right. Because now because now it's sexy right even though it wasn't for a long long time um and now but the but there there are these ancillary things that no one's doing um so there's a huge opportunity i think i think another thing too and this kind of ties back to our initial conversation so so first off like making your money in concentration you and then you keep your money in diversification, right? Right.
So we've talked about concentrating and what's really going to make you the money. But secondly, I think once with that clarity, I think you have an opportunity to teach your kids something really cool, right? Pitching them the vision, letting them see the vision go from idea to formation.
Like that's a lot of value. Well, not only that, but someone the other day said, why aren't you hiring your kids? Right.
And I'm like, my 13-year-old, probably I'm a 15-year-old too. They would love to be one of my Filipinos.
Right. Right.
Yeah, your database, cold callers, whatever else, right? Yeah. Then doing the database stuff, they could totally do that.
They're super smart, and they want to earn money.

And I'm just in my perfect opportunity.

There's no more newspapers anymore.

Right.

So they literally can't get a job.

Right.

But I'm like trying to start businesses.

I'm talking to you, Gavin Newsom.

Yeah, I hope he's listening.

I'd be happy to sit down with you with him.

I'd love to.

We have a lot to talk about.

Let's go.

So, okay.

So, I mean, dude, tons and tons of tons of opportunities.

So what we're going to do, we're going to give you, we'll give you access to like some of our five-year plan.

Definitely go and like implement that.

The other thing is, so we do weekly consulting with a bunch of business owners. We want to just give you free access to come and be a part of that.
Come join our calls for a month. I'd love to.
Be a part of that. So for anybody that's watching this show, you guys can go and try it out.
But yeah, we have a paid group where we do twice a week calls, everything like that, where we do a lot of this, right? Like question and answers. This is what's working and whatnot.
So we're going to invite you to come join and just be a part of that with us. And just for being our guest, come and do that for a month.
But dude, like you've got something awesome here if you just will take the action. Yeah.
Yeah. I've got a, about selling right and i've got a couple ideas to sell to different people in my family now right yeah selling the house and that's not a it won't be a simple task but this is the thing if i think back to um you know i'd never been divorced i'd never gone through that process.
And there are a lot of feelings sometimes. Yeah.
And especially for, you know, my ex-wife, she had a lot of feelings about it. And, you know, now I think we've gotten to a place where I think at the time it wouldn't have worked.
Yeah. But now, you know, we're in a better place.
She wants a little more freedom't you know i think the things that we want i think things have calmed down enough that the this conversation could work create some alignment so what do you what do you think is going to be the biggest hurdles in going to execute a game plan i think it's convincing her to do it okay but i but i but i think taking a step back to say hey look you're part of this, I need to make her part of the team. Right.
And I believe in that. We're a team forever no matter what.
We have these beautiful children together. And they're awesome kids.
And we want everyone to be happy in our family. So I think helping her understand kind of the longer term view, helping her understand why I'm doing what I'm doing.
She believes in me. It's not that.
And I think she's become more and more open to the fact that this, what I'm doing now makes sense. I'm on the right path.
So I think that in, you know, in my kind of initial reaction, that's, I think, the hardest. That's really the hardest.
Yeah. I think think that's it yeah and and i just say to like anybody watching this like it is so important that you realize how much self-implosed chains that we put on ourselves right like we feel that we are captured and incarcerated to our current lifestyle we have a choice we have a choice to make right whether it's selling the house, whether it's relocating, whether it, I mean, there are so many ways that we can change our life, yet we just think like, this is my situation, I just have to deal with it.
And so like, I love just the idea. It's one of my favorite practices is the what if game.
Like, what if things weren't different? How can we just just imagine like allow ourselves to be free for a second right like and not bound by the current situation just be free and like how would we go about this differently and i and i'm not my my intention is not to plug uh coaches here yeah but i do think that it's so valuable to be able to have someone you know who's you know your friends don't always see that or they won't tell you that or i don't know whatever it is right yeah friends don't always they're great they're there to support you and love you no matter what right well sometimes they're trying to protect the relationship not the person oh yeah usually protecting the relationship yeah all kinds of

motivations right but um not bad but you know going to a coach like you know you and i we we both worked with satema right satema changed my life yeah like i started getting crap done when i went to absolutely after working with him yeah and i had um a lot of things that i was stuck already and he helped me get give me tools as a coach that i could use i'm super like add right and it's just and it's hard and sometimes i'll get in my head and um get emotional about things and he really gave me some tools to help me to be way more effective and i'll tell you you know leading that you know 4 000 people in that company through the pandemic i wouldn't have been able to do as good a job at all i wouldn't even have taken the job right had i not worked with him right and so i need to level up again and um you know i just think that sometimes it's helpful to have someone else who can look at it and who's smart who's been through it like you guys and say you know what you're missing something right right dude so valuable uh you you've got all the tools here, right? Like, you know what? You're missing something, right? So valuable.

You've got all the tools here, right?

Like you've got the unit economics,

got the know-how, right?

Like it's just, you know, like I said,

unburdening yourself from like all these things

and allowing yourself to go all in on this thing

that's absolutely incredible. It's a huge opportunity.
I need to echo that, right? You can only see yourself if you look in the mirror, but we can look at you and see all aspects of what's going on. Coaching is very valuable for that aspect.
What's interesting is we all go through experiences when we're maybe less mature on whether it's facing bankruptcy, right? Sometimes you're like, crap, I have to do bankruptcy. And it's like, no, actually, you can go negotiate with every one of your debtors and not go through bankruptcy.
It's actually what I did. And what I wish I would have done.
Well, I went to a bankruptcy attorney in Orem, Utah, where you relit. And I paid the guy for one hour, and I said, tell me my options.
He looked at the situation. He said, you don't have options.
And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah. File bankruptcy.
There's no way. File bankruptcy.
And I said, I paid the guy for one hour and I said, you know, tell me my options. He's like, he looked at the situation.
He said, you don't have options.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

He's like, yeah.

File bankruptcy.

There's no way.

File bankruptcy.

And I was like, screw you.

I think I said screw you.

And I walked out and I went and I tell you, I feared the doorbell for years because, you

know, at that house where you and I lived, that neighborhood, that doorbell would ring

and it was another, someone else delivering papers to me. And I'd immediately call them.
And I'd call them right away and say, look, I owe you money. This is what I have.
This is what I don't have. How can we work it out? And so I did avoid it.
Everyone around me told me I should file bankruptcy. And I'm not proud of it still, though.
I lost money. It wasn't my intention.
But you face it like, man, that's awesome. I face it.
It took me eight years. And I paid it all off.
And it was through selling at GE Capital. I made commissions, paid it all off.
And then I was able to buy a house and I have, you know, whatever. So it's not even about the credit score.
It's not about any of that. It's more about like, I just want to see if I could do it.
Yeah. I think that's, I think it's the power in what your story is, right? It's no matter what the matter what the problem is, there's always a solution.
Sometimes we don't see it and it's how can you get some more clarity to see past the problem? Yeah. You know, one of the things that we do with all of our guests is we have them do a disc assessment, which you did.
And, uh, you know, you're a high D, low C, low I, and your, uh, your disc style is results driven, which is like one of my favorite personalities, right? Like not mine. It has its minuses.
It has its negatives. It does.
But you get crap done. I do.
Yeah. And that's the beauty.
Like when you have a personality like this and an opportunity like you do, where literally you can run for 20 months without making income, you will find a way to succeed because of who you are, right? And man, just lean into that, man. Like go in and like, I know it's going to be difficult.
There's going to be some heartache in making some of these changes, right? Going and addressing it with the ex-wife, with the kids, with community, with your pride, right? Whatever it is, right? Whatever the things that we're worried about, right? But it's going to be hard. You're going to have to go and do some stuff that's not comfortable.
And so, man, go address that. And dude, go run, man.
This thing's awesome. Get away from that consulting.
Get out of that quadrant one and quadrant three. And just get in your zone of quadrant four, the things that you love doing, negotiating deals, leading teams.
You can go and build something that's pretty freaking awesome that can be gone and sold for eight, know, eight, nine figures. Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

Sweet, man.

So what are you committed to doing?

Having some difficult conversations about, yeah, selling the house and then making my plan, my five-year plan.

Okay.

So we got here, game plan.

And so conversations.

Yep.

Sessions for selling house okay two you said what five-year plan five-year plan which then needs a backup to one-year plan which needs a backup to 90 days and then i of course i go to weekly and then uh start hiring and training i mean well i need to build the structure yeah so you need to build the systems like what's the end structure look like and what would it look like today who's going to wear what hats yep i'm good at that so you're pretty good at building out sops uh not sops structure okay so build structure but i can do sops yes that's not a big deal. Okay.
Are there, this is your list, but any things you're going to eliminate? Stop consulting. Stop consulting.
Okay. When are you going to stop consulting? Is that step two, step three, step four? Well, it's as soon as the house is sold i guess okay so all right so so step two is sell house so conversation to sell house sell house and then sell house all right three would be stop consulting yeah because i'll tell you what one of the worst things that you could do right now is go sell the house, right? Like, have the hard conversation, sell the house, and you're like, I'm going to hold on to this precious little client over here.
No, no, no, no. Right? Well, and the challenge is this too, though.
And you brought it up, is that some of them need some prep. So, I have a deal right now that, you know, they could sell for $4 or $5 million, except million except they're not doing that like they don't have sops in their restaurant group they have family tied into jobs that you know no no we need to professionalize some things so the challenge is like that's partly why i want to do a video series because i want to be able to walk people through here are the steps to get your business ready to sell yep um because a lot of them you know someone someone starts their own restaurant and all of a sudden people buy their food and then they sell more of it and then they hire more people and then they do another one but they don't ever professionalize it's the other problem is it's harder to sell so i would like to at some point i need to i would like to provide that so don't have to do that i want the consulting to be in a video format so I can.
So build course somewhere along the line. Build a course.
We'll say a line. So can I give you a couple just cautions there? Yes.
So it's going to be a temptation to want to build that course because there's value in it, right? Yeah, but I think it's a longer term thing. It is a very long term and i would say i'm not going to say don't do it but make sure that isn't like your sweet spot is going to be in front of customers closing deals right like that needs to be 80 of your time and then this other 20 of the time doing these longer term things that are going to play the one where would you where would you fit where would you fit in like um building a personal brand let me add to that so anything that you think of when building a course like if you're like these are all the steps that you would take to get your restaurant ready for business i would carve that out and then record the content and just post it for free on social media i was going to start doing because this.
Yeah. Because like Alex Mose is a great example.
I also think of Ryan. What's his face? The real estate guy.
Sirhan. Oh, sir.
Sirhan. Like you kind of look like him anyways.
But what he did is he like he positioned himself on social media as like this real estate guy. And now he gets deals because people just know him as the real estate guy even if maybe he's not the best real estate person in the world so whatever you think of like the three things you need to do to fix your financials as a rush or you know whatever that is for you that is in your brain just post it to instagram and tiktok and youtube for free yeah my thought was to my thought was to i somewhere in, I don't know, some Spotify something and they were saying, hey, just do a five minute, I mean, this would work for me.
Five minute video once a week, send it to the Philippines, have someone cut it into audio and this and that and this and that post and this and that and then it's done. And a simple framework to do it is like you're talking about getting your kids involved, like I would explain restaurant business to your kids so they can understand it and like boom like oversimplifying it to your customer base is how you'll build value like and so like that could be a video right there is explaining to your kids you know whatever absolutely and so when i say 80 20 i mean20, right? Just making sure that 80% of your time is revenue generating activities, right? Like things that are going to bring dollars in.
The other 20, play the long game. The personal brand, the course, the different things, right? And don't overcomplicate it either, right? Like just, I mean, it doesn't have to be professional cut.
literally can just hold your phone shoot a video drop it in social upload it to spotify right like it and because at this point and initially it's just practice and if you start getting followers great and you can just improve it a little bit at a time and uh but more importantly than anything is just that you're consistently doing it the opportunity cost of you because what happens is a lot of people in your position when it comes to like building a personal brand is they'll wait for content to be perfect and they'll they'll do the philippines route they'll do all this they'll get the nice camera and stuff and they'll i'll wait till it's perfect but the opportunity cost of you not doing it all right

far outweighs waiting till it's perfect like chris was saying that i some of my most viral videos were me just with my phone with very little cuts and so like honestly it's more transparent that way and people enjoy it more so anyways consistency far outweighs perfection when it comes to personal brand all right so so we got uh these

these aren't numbered correctly but uh so we got game plan we got conversation for selling the house sell the house stop consulting build out a five-year plan build out structure processes i would probably say in here hire team and then build

can't spell here

I dropped out of college. We're chilling.
And then build a course in brand. So I think, man, you go and run this right here, this is going to be a life changer.
You committed? Of course. Yeah.
We need you to commit so we can talk to you in a year when you're making a million bucks a month. Yeah.
Then I'll fly into Pasco instead of Seattle. Let's go.
Let's go. All right, guys.
We appreciate you jumping on for this episode of Next Level Pros. Remember, no matter where you're at in the level of success success is not determined by a

destination but a trajectory there is always a next level whether it's in your relationships

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